It is wonderful to start each day with a Bible study, and here in Cape Town 2010 we have the letter to the Ephesians in manuscript copy which is explored in small groups, expounded by a gifted preacher and then applied through table discussion groups. John Piper did not disappoint. He refreshed our souls with a passionate and powerful address on Ephesians 3. He painted three scenes for us: the purpose of God to make known his wisdom to the demonic powers; suffering as an instrument leading to glory; and prayer as the channel for displaying God's wisdom. However, the high point of the address for me was Piper's boldness in addressing a perceived tension on the floor of the Congress after some of the presentations the previous day which had, in Piper's view, placed too much emphasis upon relieving human suffering in this life, in isolation from the need for gospel preaching that will alleviate human suffering for eternity. We should be as concerned with eradicating Bible poverty as we are with eradicating economic poverty. He proposed the following one sentence commitment for the participants to ponder and adopt: 'For the sake of Christ, Christians care about for all human suffering, but especially eternal suffering.' This was a powerful, biblical expression of the balance that is sorely needed in some circles, for it is the love of Christ that impels us to care for the whole person, both in this age and the age to come.
Normally the Bible study is followed by table group discussion, but for some inexplicable reason the program design team allowed a lady to give her testimony immediately after Piper finished speaking. The exposition cried out for some reflection time, but this was denied us as we listened to the story of the death of ten people, including the lady's husband, in a Middle Eastern country. We have been asked to suppress her name and any details of her story, but suffice it to say that the testimony was very moving, all the more so as the events took place in the last three months; yet it was entirely misplaced in the program. She was allotted 9 minutes and took 19 minutes, so no time was available for any discussion and application of the Bible passage in our groups. An opportunity sorely missed.
World view
With the theme of World Faiths, the second plenary session was devoted to Christians living as a minority group among other faiths and the opportunities available for witness. Archbishop Ben Kwashi of the Nigerian Diocese of Jos (one of the speakers at GAFCON) gave a moving story of how Muslim rebels earlier this year had burned 100 churches and 300 Christian homes, yet his counsel and advice to his Anglican diocese was: do nothing"”show the love of Christ with patient endurance. A hard call in the face of many seeking revenge. Kwashi then told of the attack upon his home in 2006 when militants left his wife, Gloria, for dead and totally blind. After treatment in the US, she returned a year later with her sight restored, but again Muslim militants came to his house to kill him. He asked if he could pray for his attackers, which he did, and when he had finished praying they had left. Stories like this abound in Northern Nigeria and elsewhere, but not always with such remarkable endings.
We then heard from a converted Muslim Indian woman who became a believer in 1978 and ten years later her husband was converted. With a burdened heart for the 1.3 billion Muslims living in the world, she began a ministry to Muslims by starting an "Islamic culture" church. The pastor is called a mullah, they sit on the floor, as in a mosque, use some of the cultural expressions familiar to Muslims, but present Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Muslims would come in, thinking it was a mosque, and some would stay and get converted! In the past seven years 25 men and 12 women have been baptised. One of the 'fresh expressions' of church that I don't think has been tried in Australia!
Photo:Participants in table groups.
True bravery
The courage of some of these Christians in Muslim cultures is truly remarkable. One story that deserves repeating concerned a husband and wife in Iran who were travelling to the shops. As the husband was about to go into the shop, the wife noticed a military man with a rifle sitting outside. 'You should give him a Bible', said the wife to her husband. After he returned from the shop, she asked him if he had given the soldier a Bible. 'No', he said, 'I prayed about it and it didn't seem right.' As they drove on, the wife prayed out loud in the car: 'Dear Lord, may the blood of that man not be held to my account on the Day of Judgment, but to my husband's.' There then ensued a domestic discussion, which resulted in the man returning to the shop to give the man the Bible. When he did so, the man exclaimed, 'I had a dream last night that I was to come to this shop today and wait outside where someone would give me the word of eternal life.' God does indeed work in remarkable ways!
The evening session was devoted to scattered peoples, the modern diaspora of megacities and then a regional focus on Latin America. Tim Keller addressed the Congress on the importance of city ministry. Keller outlined three reasons why the church needs to be in the city, being cultural, missiological and visceral. The 21st century will not be dominated by countries, but by cities, where currently 50% of the world's population lives, compared with 3% in 1700. There are 21 megacities (over 10 million in population), and two people are added to the cities of our world every second of the day! The most unreached peoples are more easily reached in the cities, where young people make up a disproportionate percentage. Both the poor and the elite live in cities. Yet the heart of the matter is that God cares for the city (unfortunately Keller's articulation of this point gave the impression that God did not equally cares for the rural sector!). Citing the final recorded words of God to Jonah, Keller admonished us not to love plants more than people, for God has many thousands (120,000 in Nineveh) in the city. Just as Abraham prayed for the pagan cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, so we too should pray for the pagan cities of our world.
Watch a video from Sydney’s Steve Chong speaking to John Piper
(Pictures: Lausanne 2010 [url=http://www.lausanne.org]http://www.lausanne.org[/url])
